We have a dream

Music is a powerful medium. It can evoke universal emotions and move us or give us pleasure, or it can be disorienting or confrontational. Music is a reverberation of life; love and frustration find their way into it. But music can also be a political weapon. Its ability to set people in motion is precisely what makes it a perfect vehicle for sending serious messages – against the war, against the evil forces in society, against intolerance, against racism – out into the world. It has always been this way, and we see it in every musical genre from Beethoven, Kurt Weill and Billie Holiday to Bob Dylan, Bob Marley and U2. Of course, the effectiveness of this kind of activism is relative. Sometimes the words shed their significance layer by layer and become meaningless sounds, and sometimes they become a call to action. Sometimes a piece of music turns into an anthem (for example, Jimi Hendrix’s version of the American national anthem as a symbol of the movement against the Vietnam war), and sometimes it is censored by an authoritarian government (from Nazi Germany to Communist China).

Inspired by the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination, Brussels Jazz Orchestra is working on a musical project with human rights as its theme. We have a dream presents old songs in new arrangements. Frank Vaganée and Tutu Puoane combed through their record collections and selected their personal favourites from the rich history of the protest song. The music they have chosen is a strikingly homogeneous set: the songs are mainly from the late 1960s and early 1970s, and there is no punk, funk, hip-hop, reggae or hippie music here, but instead jazz and soul (Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder) and a couple of white singer-songwriters (Joni Mitchell, Sting). Each and every song has a powerful message about human rights, injustice, oppression or inequality.

That the focus of We have a dream is not on contemporary music protesting recent wars or truth-challenged presidents but instead on songs from the 1960s and 1970s is no coincidence, since this was the heyday of the protest-song genre. It is remarkable, however, that today there are more and more events with a social slant on the cultural scene (both subsidised and non-subsidised). We are living in a multicultural world that is on fire. Human-rights violations and discrimination against people who are “different” in any way are frequently front-page news. We need guidance and greater awareness. Artistic activism can promote social cohesion when activists work with particular social groups, or if the music is taken to other social settings. But the most important effect of a socially involved programme is that these songs open our eyes. They inspire, shock and amaze us, and make us angry, happy or sad. And the songs in We have a dream, conveying their message of justice, absolutely do this.

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The 1960s were turbulent times in black America. After decades of discrimination, racism and apartheid, a civil-rights movement had finally taken form. Malcolm X was willing to solve racial problems with violence if necessary, while Martin Luther King was preaching reconciliation. Nina Simone was also active in the civil-rights movement and recorded a number of politically charged songs. ‘Why? (The King of Love is Dead)’ was written by her bassist Gene Taylor in 1968, just days after the announcement that Martin Luther King had been assassinated. Simone performed it immediately and the live recording was nominated for an Emmy (the LP Nuff Said!). ‘We can’t afford any more losses. They’re killing us one by one’, she said at that concert. In ‘Four Women’ (1966), written by Simone herself, the jazz singer describes the fate of Afro-American women. Daughters of slaves, their roles in society were reduced to stereotypes they could not escape themselves. The first has to stay strong to handle the pain. The second has a black mother who is abused by a rich white man. The third has become a prostitute and also has to please white men, while the last gets left behind, paralyzed and embittered by the scars of her parents’ slavery. Simone’s struggle against injustice and pain was enough at the time to get her banished from the major radio stations.

Black consciousness also was expressed in the black pop music of that age, particularly in soul and funk. Sam Cooke’s soul hit ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’, was taken up by the civil-rights movement. Another example is the Stax label. Serving up raw soul rooted in the gospel tradition, energetic music for and by the black community, it was an approach out of which arose funk. Both a revolution in rhythm and a political weapon, funk was the perfect soundtrack to the black struggle for liberation. There was also Motown, more or less the black version of bubblegum, a music factory that churned out high-quality soul, made palatable for the white mainstream by smoothing out any rough edges of social issues. However, the growth of funk and musical activism got a few Motown artists thinking. Songwriters Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong set a new course with the anti-war song ‘War’ (1970). Originally, the number was supposed to be recorded by The Temptations as an album track. Even though the song was a hit among youth who saw it as a protest against the Vietnam War, Whitfield and Strong did not want to release it as a single and risk having its politically charged lyrics alienate the more conservative Temptations fans. Motown sought a new interpreter and found the necessary ‘clean slate’ in Edwin Starr. Starr sang ‘War’ more intensely, screaming out at the senseless war and at the grief of innocent victims. Not only did his version fit in with the counterculture of the late 1960s, it even became a number-1 hit, and is one of the most famous protest songs ever and now a Motown classic. It was later covered by others, including Bruce Springsteen and Frankie Goes To Hollywood. ‘War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.’ Except that the song did earn the writers and performers a lot of money. Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye also took a similar path. They tore themselves from the grip of Motown’s commercial demands and insisted on absolute freedom. From then on, they followed their own wills, and those wills had a social commitment. In ‘Inner City Blues’ (from the 1971 self-produced LP What’s Going On) Marvin Gaye and lyricist James Nyx Jr. painted life in the ghetto and the stark contrast between the economic situations there and in the rest of American society. There was money to put a man on the moon, but none to help the poor. Besides high taxes, there was inflation, increasing violence, panic and a completely misunderstood population: ‘No baby, this ain’t livin’’. After this hit album, life dealt Gaye failed marriages, drug problems, a stay in Oostende and a ‘sexual healing’, and ultimately, his own father shooting him dead. Stevie Wonder threw himself into both social criticism and honey-sweet love songs in the 1970s. ‘Heaven Help Us All’ is one of the four hits from Wonder’s album Signed, Sealed & Delivered (1970) and was written by Ron Miller. In it, the American soul singer begs for help for everyone in this troubled world who is having a tough time of it: homeless children, girls working as prostitutes, the black man who is always suffering and the white man who refuses to see it, the young man who won’t see his 21st birthday and the man who gave him a gun. Wonder prays to the Lord before going to sleep, in the hope that heaven can help them all.

Sometimes a song is assigned meaning that was not originally there and it can take on a life of its own. This happened to Roger Waters after his autobiographical criticism of the British educational system, ‘Another Brick In The Wall’, was banned in South Africa. Similarly, ‘Someday We’ll all Be Free’ (1973) by the American Donny Hathaway was not originally about civil rights. The jazz singer had written many hits for soul artists such as Curtis Mayfield and Aretha Franklin, but the better his career was going, the more depressed he felt. During the early 1970s, his mental health was at a low point. Lyricist Edward Howard was trying to cheer him up and wrote ‘Someday We’ll All Be Free’ for him as an encouragement to not let himself be pushed around, to keep dreaming, to sing, to stay proud. ‘Take it from me, someday we’ll all be free’. However, the song turned into an anthem about black civil rights after Spike Lee used the song in his film about Malcolm X. It became a standard, and it has been performed by countless artists since then.

Someone who has personally experienced social injustice is the South African singer Letta Mbulu. Because of her commitment to social causes she was banished from her own country. She went to the US, where she worked with Harry Belafonte and Cannonball Adderley, and won an Emmy Award for the soundtrack of the film Roots. In 1992, after Nelson Mandela was released from prison, she was allowed to return to her native country and recorded the album Not Yet Uhuru with her husband Caiphus. ‘Uhuru’ means ‘freedom’ in Swahili. The expression ‘Not yet uhuru’ originally came from Kenyan opposition leader Oginga Odinga, who was saying that even after independence there was still no place in the country for opposition. With Mbulu, the title immediately subdues the euphoria in South Africa following Mandela’s release: there is still no progress, poverty is everywhere, social rights are a joke, people are still in chains and are being exploited. For them, there is no freedom.

Joni Mitchell is the only artist in the programme who built up her career in the white folk scene of the 1960s. However, she had a breakthrough in the 1970s, when she broadened her range of musical styles, also turning more towards jazz. Her lyrics are often about social issues, such as children’s rights. ‘Cherokee Louise’ (1991) is about child sexual abuse. It is based on the true story of one of Mitchell’s childhood friends, a Native American girl named Mary. She was rejected and gossiped about, and hid herself away – all because her father abused her. ‘They paved paradise to put up a parking lot’ is the first line of ‘Big Yellow Taxi’, one of Mitchell’s best-known songs (from the LP Ladies of the Canyon, 1970). She wrote it on a visit to Hawaii, when she looked out from her hotel window to see beautiful green mountains in the distance, but below her, the destruction of nature in order to make an immense parking lot. Environmental issues were also tangible in the capital Honolulu, where there is an open-air collection of rare tropical plants: ‘They took all the trees, and put ‘m in a tree museum/ And charged the people a dollar and a half just to see ‘em.’

Besides a South African, this largely American programme also includes two Britons. Sting brought white rock and black reggae together in The Police, and in the late 1980s emerged as a compelling singer-songwriter, one of the first to work intensively with jazz musicians. His highly poetic and socially involved lyrics also went a step further. He participated in Band Aid and a project for Tibet, has worked with Amnesty International and founded the Rainforest Foundation. In ‘They Dance Alone’ (from Nothing Like The Sun, 1987) he honours the Chilean women who continue to do a traditional dance in public without a partner. They hold photos of their missing fathers, sons and lovers, who are among the thousands tortured and murdered by the dictator Pinochet’s regime in the 1970s and 1980s. Loud protest was prohibited, as the army was always lurking nearby. But this makes their stifled grief and their quiet resistance all the more powerful. Although they are silent, they are screaming in their thoughts. Sting warned the dictator: one day, the foreign aid will dry up, and your own mother will have to make do with a photo of you. In reality, however, the dictator was never convicted for his violations of human rights.

Rod Stewart is a remarkable choice, as the bluesy pop singer is not exactly known for commitment to social causes. In the 1960s he sang with Jeff Beck and The Faces; currently he is meeting with success as a crooner. Nevertheless, he is sensitive to injustice. Unexpectedly, he donated the royalties from his disco megahit ‘Do You Think I’m Sexy’ to the UN children’s fund UNICEF. With ‘The Killing of Georgie’ (1976), other experiences inspired Stewart to get involved. Stewart tells the story of a homosexual friend who was misunderstood and even rejected by his parents. Georgie moves to New York, where he freely leads the life he wants, is successful, goes to lavish parties and is loved by everyone everywhere, until one evening when he has a fatal encounter with a street gang.

Bonus: even the life of a frog has its hardships, at least in Sesame Street and The Muppet Show. Kermit the Frog sings ‘It’s not easy bein’ green’, (a song from 1970 by Joe Raposo which was later sung by Frank Sinatra, Van Morrison, Diana Ross and Ray Charles). He feels that green is a worthless colour. It’s too ordinary; people don’t even look at something so banal. He’d rather be red, yellow or gold, and be as sparkly as a star in the sky. Gradually, though, he realises that green is also the colour of spring, and that green can also be ‘big’. As he sees more and more beautiful green things, he actually becomes proud of his colour, and stops wanting to be different.

Gert Keunen – March 2017

Gert Keunen (1969) is a teacher, publicist and musician. He has a doctorate in cultural sociology and teaches music history and sociology of music at the School Of Arts/Conservatorium in Ghent, PXL Music in Hasselt and School Of Arts/Rits in Brussels. He is also coordinator of the jazz/pop department at the Ghent Conservatorium. Previously he was an instructor and researcher at the Fontys School of Fine and Performing Arts/Rockacademie in Tilburg, worked as label manager for Zomba/ Rough Trade Records, music programmer for arts centre Vooruit in Ghent and as a freelance music journalist for De Standaard, De Morgen and Gonzo Circus.